e night. Mac retired to his bunk
first and had scarcely settled down when he emitted another snort, then
a yell; the bees had settled in between the blankets of his bed and were
renewing their onslaught on his helpless body.

Everybody started laughing at McLean's plight, but no sooner were the
rest of us settled down till we too had a battle on our hands; and in
the middle of the fray, Fritz started shelling our billets with gas
shells, one of the missiles going clean through the tile roof and
knocking the tiles down on our heads. Then came a salvo--six
shells--followed by several others. "S.O.S." was signaled and "Stand
to," and out we raced for the guns, sans shirt, sans everything, bumping
into the trees on our way and falling in shell holes in the orchard.

The gas they were putting over at this time was more dangerous than any
I had yet experienced, it having a more direct effect on the lungs than
any they had yet given us. It had started to rain and the darkness was
black, but we reached the guns within scheduled time, and under great
difficulty we exploded our shells; but most of our work in that
discharge was guesswork.

It soon cooled down and we again sought our billets after laying the
guns on "S.O.S." and even the pain from the stings of the bees did not
prevent us getting into dreamland in short order.

At 3:30 in the morning I went out to visit the last guard shift, as was
my duty. Then, dawn breaking over the land, I went out to see what
damage the shells had done, and on the way I stumbled into a crop of the
most delicious mushrooms. Off came my helmet and I filled it to the brim
and hastened to the cookhouse with them; he had just got his fire
started and I asked him if he would oblige me by cooking them for me, as
I wanted them for my gun crew, and he gladly complied with my request.

Then cookhouse was called and the crew came to breakfast and when each
man got his portion of the mushrooms served him, his astonishment was as
great as when he got the honey. So that between the honey and the dewy
dainties I had gathered, together with a couple of jars of pickled pork
and two small jars of rolled butter found in one of the vacated cellars
by an industrious member of our crew, you can imagine the excited
condition of our minds that morning at breakfast.

During the course of the feasting the Sergeant-Major arrived on the
scene. "Well, for Heaven's sake! Who was the guy that got the
mushrooms?" He w